The present invention relates to an apparatus for measuring the properties of mold materials including gas permeability, weight, compression strength, shear strength, bending strength and other properties.
Swiss A-646 790 discloses an apparatus of the aforementioned type which is suitable only for the testing of compressive strength, flexural strength, and the compressibility of foundry mold materials.
For judging the properties of mold materials other additional tests and measurements are necessary. For such measurements, such as, for instance, apparent density, test specimen weight, gas permeability, double shear strength, green tensile strength, wet tensile strength, splitting resistance and flexural strength, individual instruments have become known for each test such as described, for instance, in the prospectus: "Test Instruments for Mold and Core Sands" of Georg Fischer Giessereianlagen AG, Bulletin No. GA 293/1a (8/91).
All of these instruments have the disadvantage that they can be used only for one type of test and also in each case give only one measurement value.
Only in the device of Swiss A-646 790 can several measurements be carried out; however, the other measurements or tests mentioned with the other instruments are necessary in order to be able to reliably judge the properties of a foundry mold material.
The object of the present invention is to overcome this disadvantage and to propose a single apparatus of the aforementioned type with which the important mold-material properties of bentonite-bonded and resin-bonded mold materials can be measured and tested. In addition, a reduction in cost and a saving in space in the test laboratory are obtained.
The invention also has the object of determining and recording all data on-line.